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Saturday, August 2, 2014

Rebutting the Lie: The New York Times Article Kids Who Beat Autism

With chelation, cannabis, sauna
treatments, and bleach being widely believed by ordinary people to be
legitimate treatments for people with autism, this article I read came of being
particular disgust to me.Recently, the
New York Times did an editorial called Kids
Who Beat Autism, describing as its name suggests, that certain kids who
were, at least, autistic now no longer have autism, by Ruth Padawer, which you
can read here for a balanced perspective on my rebuttal:

As I finished this article, I
find myself fairly unimpressed with its findings and studies.To be fair Padawer stops just short of
condoning the idea of eliminating autism.She admits that certain marketed treatments out there, such as vitamin
shots, special diets, and nutritional supplements, are dangerous, yet the
rhetoric of this article appears to be that autism is a prison for children, to
say nothing of what it is for parents, making them unable to have real
relationships, and be a perpetual hostage of their own world, but that they
have found a way through safe treatment (e.g. Applied Behavior Analysis) that
delivers them from this cage and makes them non-autistic, and thus now able to
lead happy, meaningful lives.Throughout
the article, Padawer consistently draws from studies which demonstrate greater
social progress for children who received more hours of A.B.A than less, such
as full, or at least greater language ability.What Padawer does not mention is autistics who are non-verbal and who
also lead productive and socially successful lives, such as Amanda Baggs, Amy Sequinza, and Sue Rubin.For the first
eight paragraphs in Padawer’s rather long article, she mostly discusses a young
child named B.Her article begins with
saying B. was a perfectly developmentally typical child until he was around
two, when he retreated into his own world, stopped using eye contact, had tantrums,
and frequently banged his head.About
nine paragraphs into her article, Padawer also talks about another child,
Matthew, who at the time at least had autism, and states quite clearly that
Matthew was not interested in other children, and who also had limited
communication.Seven and eight
paragraphs into her article, she points out that through years of A.B.A, B.,
gained language skills, talked frequently, and abandoned his need to
perseverate about his special interests in dinosaurs and fish, and eventually
his doctor claimed that B. no longer had autism.

Now to me, this seems like an
incredibly oversimplified idea of what autism is.I can carry on a conversation, make eye
contact, read social and emotional cues, have discussions with peers that are
interesting to both of us, yet my parents and family would raise an eyebrow if
they heard a professional say I wasn't autistic.I still exhibit fixated interests, have
trouble sleeping (mostly during highly stressful periods), can be averse to
certain food textures, even though that is gradually changing. Two paragraphs after Padawer states B. was
diagnosed as being no longer autistic, Padawer states that autism is based on
certain diagnostic criteria, which children can grow out of and are thus no
longer autistic, even if they do display some autistic traits.But maybe a fair question is, “Who decides
the diagnostic criteria for people with autism?”The criterion has changed over decades.The criteria by which I was diagnosed as a
young child is now very different from what it is now that I am twenty-four.In
any case Padawer and certain psychologists may say I or other children outgrew
what defines autism.Yet from what I see
many diagnostic traits, such as the lack of interest in other people are merely
impressions of psychologists.Autistics
do have interests in other people, yet don't always know how to express it,
many of whom don't have the language skills to do so in the ways that come
naturally to verbal neurotypicals, or the lack of innate ability to read
non-verbal social cues, so I am not impressed by the findings that children's
"interests" in people increase with language skills, and the ability
to read social cues through intense training.The article made no mention of the frequent overstimulation autistic
people experience when it mentioned head-banging and tantrums.Autistic people learn certain things
differently just as children with dyslexia and AD/HD do.In Padawer article, she makes no mention of
historical people believed to have autism, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Albert
Einstein, Harry Truman, or Abraham Lincoln.In the words of 2011 autistic Miss Montana winner, Alexus Wineman, “Autism
doesn’t define me.”

Padawer mentions nothing as to
whether the brains of autistic children change after their treatment.She simply mentions that no one knows about
what differences there are in the autistic brain.I would also point out that there is
knowledge on the differences between autistic and non-autistic brains, Time
magazine did an article in 2006 on autism, which showed many ways in which
certain parts of the brains of autistic people are different than in
non-autistic people.You could probably
find it if you googled "Time magazine autism 2006."Padawer merely quotes, vaguely, that
psychologist Geraldine Dawson’s believe that the autistic brain could
change.Padawer makes no mention of
Dawson’s tenure as a board member of the group Autism Speaks, which then held
to the belief that vaccines cause autism.The fact that Dawson was paid over half a million dollars for her role
as an executive should automatically remove her from a list of non-biased
sources.Padawer also makes no reference
to the fact that A.B.A is not an appropriate treatment for autistic
people.My father, a PhD psychologist in
Overland Park, Kansas, claims that A.B.A would have been a horrible treatment
for me and that the right school was the right path for people like
myself.Padawer does not lie, to be
perfectly honest, but her facts lack the insights and complete picture that can
only be gained with other equally important stories of several individuals with
autism.For me it is necessary to refute
this article because people are ensnared and led to dangerous decisions by
ideas like Padawer’s.These children's
autism is clearly not cured, and promising this illusion simply creates shame
for parents who fail to "cure" their children, rather than
redirecting their energy to advocate for services for their kids and let them
make it through life.The so-called
findings in this article seem to merely be a by-product on our culture's useless
war on autism. I would not say my life
is worse than for people who haven't been cured.I am a college student, an artist, a writer,
a flautist, and a friend to autistics, neurotypicals, dyslexics, Downs people,
and a part-time retailer.For me, being
able to tell people I am autistic allows them have sympathy for my unique
behavioral traits and it entitles me to test-taking services at my university. From the material I read I find this article
shows the typical culturally idiosyncrasy of the idea that autistic children
are science experiments, and ignorance of us as first-class citizens.